I disagree with it completely (even to the point of thinking New Order get steadily less compelling from "Blue Monday" onwards) But as with the Steve Sutherland "Scott Walker solo is shite, should have stayed in the Walker Brothers" review, it is refreshing to read such a counter-consensual take(-down)
"The ranks of the unattended legends" - nice phrase, and I guess Joydiv probably were at their lowest ebb reputationally in 1990, in terms of being an influence or something cited by other bands. And few things could have been less related to the baggy positivity emanating from the very same city at the time of writing.
Loop had done a Joydiv-ish single earlier that year ("Arc-Lite", and quite soon Disco Inferno in their early glacial monochrome phase (pre-postrock) would swim into view. There had also been a cool American band with some of that postpunk scouring dourness - Nice Strong Arm.
But no, in 1990, hardly anyone was referencing or drawing from Joy Division.
That would change - but it took another decade-plus... and a couple of films certainly helped.
Nowadays the cover design of Unknown Pleasures is everywhere, a T-shirt you can buy in malls, in the same league iconically as the Stones tongue-and-lips logo. Their canonic eminence seems permament.
